A survey published on eAccountable finds that many influencers aren’t concerned about disclosure rules by the FTC.

A recent report published by digital marketing firm eAccountable found that an astounding 95% of the 400 mid-level influencers with between 10,000 and 100,000 followers believed that their audiences still trust their brand recommendations when disclosing their posts as sponsored as per the US Federal Trade Commission’s guidelines.

“Stemming from the concern that posts labeled as sponsored impact credibility, one of the questions I asked in the survey was whether influencers think posts labeled as ‘sponsored’ limit the effectiveness of the brand recommendation. 95% of the influencers in the survey reported that they think their audience still trusts their brand recommendation, even when in a post marked as sponsored,” Kristen Matthews, marketing director of eAccountable wrote in SocialMediaToday.

This confidence in sponsored posts may come as a result of how influencers choose which brands they make ties with. The same survey found that an identical percentage of respondents partner with companies when they find that the products involved in the sponsorship “align” with the content that they produce.

Because they seek synergy with their own personal brands, the marketing that they end up doing for the most part appears more genuine. 70% of influencers added that they also look for what the brand offers per post.

The median offering an influencer is likely to go for is $250-400, with about a third providing this figure. However, about 20% of them are willing to go lower and about 15% want sums of between $450-600 per post.

Authenticity also means putting aside the prospect of sponsored posts to make one’s profile as “homey” as possible. Matthews found that the majority of influencers have sponsorships in fewer than 25% of their posts, providing more genuine content to win the hearts and minds of their audiences and build rapport with them as opposed to shoveling product placements in their faces constantly.

This ebb and flow, followed with the priorities that influencers have when choosing which companies to associate themselves with, may explain why they have such confidence in being transparent about their brand partnerships.

eAccountable’s survey results show a direct contrast to UAE influencers surveyed by Bukhash Brothers, with 84% of them admitting that they do not disclose their partnerships with any measure of clarity.

It would be interesting to study this further and find out whether the differences in disclosure are possibly due to a culture gap or simply due to the differing natures in the kinds of brands that contact influencers from different areas of the world.